For a morning that started out crummy, the day was looking up for Grace. She imagined herself getting promoted and pinned by the chief as her mother watched on with a tear in her eye. She had spent her life trying to make her mother proud, to prove to her that she did the right thing by keeping her after the most violent act of her life. Grace knew that while she had the same eyes as her mother, she surely had several of the traits of her father, including the shape of her angular face and the fullness of her lips. Her mother had a heart-shape face with a set of lips that were so thin they looked like a skinny line had been drawn across the lower half of her face. She was sure Ellen couldn’t help but see the differences in their appearances, knowing full well that anything that didn’t mimic her own features was likely a result of her rapist’s DNA.

  She Googled Mackenzie Waterford again, this time searching for links instead of photos. After several rows of search results, she clicked on the girl’s Facebook page. “Of course. Facebook. The bible for all teenagers,” Grace said under her breath. She had recently heard somewhere that the younger generation thought Facebook was outdated and uncool and Twitter was the new thing, but that didn’t appear to be the case with Mackenzie. She scrolled down the timeline. A few messages from friends greeted her.

  Taylor: Hey girl, missed you in AP chem yesterday. Where were u?

  December 20, at 8:30pm

  Matty O’Shea: Great speech! You rock!

  December 20, 2015 at 11:13pm

  The rest of the posts were an assortment of professional female soccer players, news clippings on college entrance exams and a few cute cat photos. Based on Mackenzie’s lack of replies, it appeared that the girl didn’t spend all that much time on social media. Either that or she was covering her tracks. Just as Grace started to scroll through her list of 213 friends, she remembered Mark saying that he had a sister about Mackenzie’s age. Grace took a moment to let her fingers dance on the desk, before picking up the phone and dialing Mark’s extension. When the call went to his voicemail, she dialed the control room.

  “Hey, Joe.”

  “Hey, kid. What can I do you for?” The warmth of his voice comforted Grace the instant it came through the line.

  “Hey, do you know if Sergeant Connolly is in today? I’ve got a quick question for him.” She felt the need to defend herself for asking about him because she’d been so used to Barb making assumptions about her love life.

  “Nope. Today’s an off day for him. He’ll be back in tomorrow.” Joe fired the answer at her before even having to think about it. “If you really need him, you can probably find him at the gym. The guy works out like he’s training for the next Sylvester Stallone movie or something.”

  “Ahhh okay. Thanks, Joe.”

  “You got it, kid.”

  Grace slid her desk drawer open, the squeaking of the metal piercing her ears. Folded up into a tiny square was the hot pink Post-it note with Mark’s cell number on it.

  Hesitantly, she dialed the number and after four rings, Mark’s voice picked up, breathy and in short bursts. There wasn’t much that Joe Sullivan wasn’t right about. “Sergeant Connolly,” he said.

  “Do you always answer the phone like that when you’re off duty?” Grace asked, feeling an elevation of confidence.

  “I like to think I’m never off duty.” He came back with a light chuckle. “What’s up, Grace?”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Well, it’s the year 2015 and we have caller ID, and you happen to be one of two females who work at the Bridgeton Police Department. And let’s face it, no one quite has Barb’s deep Boston accent.” His voice was fluid now, having had a moment to drop his weights or lower the level of the treadmill. Grace pictured him pacing back and forth in front of a mirror in a home gym, the back of his shirt drenched in sweat.

  “Well, I remember you mentioning that your sister attends Bridgeton High. I was hoping maybe I could chat with her for a bit about the Waterford case.”

  “Wow, so is that Waterford girl still missing?” He asked, his interest genuinely aroused. “I thought for sure that would be a false alarm.”

  “Well, technically it was, Mackenzie is home and safe. Turned out to be just a miscommunication between her and her parents.” Grace paused for a moment, having not even given any thought to how she was going to explain her interest in the closed case to Mark. “There’s just something I want to clear up. Something is a bit off.”

  “I gotcha. You gotta go with your gut.” Mark’s words were coated in comfort and Grace had started to think this was going to be too easy. “So, what do you say we meet for coffee. I’ll pick Rain up around two-thirty after she gets outta some Christmas break class she is taking. We can meet at that little coffee shop just outside of town. I’m assuming you want a private location, away from the crowd of kids who typically hit up the café in the town’s center.”

  “You read my mind.” Grace had imagined this conversation to be a lot more difficult than it was proving to be. Mark was always so quiet, even mysterious around the station. Over the phone she felt the ease of speaking with an old friend. “Wait, did you say Rain?”

  “Ha! Yeah, I did. My mom kind of switched her gears a bit when she had my little sister.

  “Different dads?” Grace couldn’t help but ask the question. She had already been intrigued by Mark, now she was putting together the details of his family.

  “Yep,” he said brusquely. “So, I’ll see you there around two-thirty. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great. Thank you so much, Mark. I really appreciate this,” she said, grateful for the subject change.

  “No problem. Rain is used to being questioned by her big brother, so this should be no big deal,” he said with a chuckle.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A cluster of bells crashed on the door of Wave Café as Grace pushed her way into the warmth of the coffee shop. She could hear a girl giggling before she looked up from stomping the snow off her boots. In the corner of the café, Mark was immersed in the story that Rain was telling him, her arms animated and her face contorting as she mimicked someone. They looked more like a father and daughter than brother and sister. Grace slid her hat off, shaking off the clump of snow that had dropped on her head when she opened the door. Mark waved in her direction, motioning to the third seat that he had already considerately pulled up to the table for two.

  “Hey,” Grace said as she slid out of her long puffy black coat, hoping not to shake off any more snow on the floor. She already felt bad about the trail of melting flakes that had followed her from the door to the table.

  “Hey, Grace. This is Rain, my baby sister.”

  “Oh my God, will you please stop calling me your baby sister? I’m practically an adult!” Rain said, her eyes rolling with each word. “It’s nice to meet you, Grace.” Rain stood up and shook Grace’s hand. Clearly, Mark had taught the girl well.

  “You’ll always be my baby sister,” he said, making a pouty face. Grace felt like she was meeting a different Mark than the one she knew at the station. He was always so serious, so quiet and now here he was, clearly smitten with his sister.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Rain. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat. I’m sure you’re swamped with schoolwork,” Grace said, sliding her wooden chair to the empty table.

  “Rain here is one of those geniuses who barely has to put in any effort and she excels. Aren’t you, Rain?” Mark said, doting on the girl. “She literally has a photographic memory.”

  “Not quite.” Rain shrugged off the compliment.

  “Do you guys want a coffee, tea?” Grace asked.

  “I’ll get it. You two get acquainted.” Mark stood, stabbing his hands in his pocket. “I already know what you want, little missy. Iced peanut butter mocha with an extra shot of espresso. Grace?”

  “Oh, I’ll just have a medium coffee, skim milk and sugar.”

  “You got it,” Mark said as he sauntered up to the counter. Grace watched as a gaggle of college girls at a corner table stopped mid-conversation and stared at Mark as he walked past. She could practically see the drool trickling past their glossy lips.

  “So, did Mark tell you why I wanted to meet with you?” Grace turned toward Rain, taking in the girl’s shiny black hair and big brown eyes. The common features that Mark and Rain had stopped at the dark hair. They were both highly attractive, but she didn’t doubt that they had different fathers.

  “No, he didn’t. But, I know I’m not in any kind of trouble. I made him promise me that,” Rain said, a bright white smile penetrating her olive skin.

  “No, you certainly aren’t in any kind of trouble. I really just wanted to ask you a few questions about Mackenzie Waterford. Do you know her?”

  “Ha! Everyone knows Mackenzie Waterford. She’s pretty notorious at Bridgeton High.”

  “I kinda got that impression. Do you have any classes with her?”

  “Yeah, I’m in a lot of AP classes and, as I’m sure you’ve heard, so is Mackenzie. So, we tend to overlap a few classes here and there.”

  “Really, so you know her pretty well?”

  “As well as I can. She has a ton of friends but kinda keeps to herself at the same time. If that makes any sense.” Rain paused for a moment, using one hand to gather her thick mane and twist it between her fingers, before letting it drop on one shoulder.

  “Yeah, I guess some people are like that,” Grace said, as she looked up to see Mark hovering over her, holding out a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Here you go,” he said, sliding into the third seat. “And here is your ridiculously high-calorie, overly expensive drink,” he said, rolling his eyes as he sent the fancy iced drink across the smooth surface of the table to Rain. Rain didn’t miss a beat and rolled hers right back.

  “Are there any friends or relationships that you remember Mackenzie having that seemed a bit off? Maybe something you noticed that was odd. Something you could pick up on from a distance, or heard a rumor about.”

  “Ouch.” Rain used two fingers to squeeze the top of her nose. “Brain freeze, brain freeze.” Her face contorted into a look of pain.

  “That, my baby sister, is why you don’t drink these frozen drinks—especially in the middle of winter.” Mark leaned back in the chair, self-assured and satisfied.

  “Oh, shut it. I just drank it too fast,” Rain said, gaining her composure. “Now that I think about it, she has this weird relationship with our art teacher. It’s like the two of them are BFF’s, even though there is obviously a huge age gap. I mean, I wouldn’t want to hang out with any of my teachers.”

  Grace was so satisfied with this admission that she nearly broke out into a huge grin, but stopped herself. “Really? How so? I mean, how are they close? Do they spend time outside of school together?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but it’s weird. Like, we’d be in class learning about something stupid like what thickness of brush we should use to create certain lines, and Miss Silva would ALWAYS call on Mackenzie to be an example. And the two of them, I don’t know . . . they would like have this secret language, giggling and acting all weird. In front of the whole class. The rest of the class got pretty annoyed by it, but we kind of always expected Mackenzie to be the pet. That’s the way it always is with her. She has to be perfect at everything.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Grace peeled her eyes off of Rain and transferred them to Mark, who was staring openly at her. For a moment, Grace was mesmerized by the way his hazel eyes glistened against the backdrop of an incredibly bright white. He gave her a small sideways smile, revealing a cleft in his chin.

  “I do remember when we went on a field trip to the MFA, the two of them arrived and left together. I’m not sure if anyone else noticed it, but I did for sure. It was kind of obnoxious, ya know? Miss Silva drives this old school blue VW Bug, and it’s got all these hippy stickers on the back, so I remember reading all the peace-loving bumper stickers from where I was standing, and then I noticed that Mackenzie got out of the passenger side and I was like weird. . .” Rain sat back in the chair, and pulled one leg up, making herself comfortable. “I mean, I remember thinking it was exceptionally weird because Mackenzie is soooo not the hippy type. She’s all reserved and buttoned up, if you know what I mean. Kinda like her parents. And then there’s Miss Silva, who has literally showed up to class with two different shoes on and just chalked it up to being artistic expression. It’s kinda what I like about Miss Silva, though. She’s so loopy, just a classic artist ya know?”

  All Grace could picture was the image of Jenny Silva’s tormented eyes, the struggle that the woman was enduring, whether it was physically or emotionally.

  “Knowing Miss Silva, she’s probably at some hippy retreat during Christmas break or something.” Rain absentmindedly fingered the colorful stringy bracelets on her wrist.

  “Could you do me a favor, Rain?” Grace’s heartbeat escalated with the girl’s innocent admission.

  “Of course.”

  “If anything else comes up, in art class . . . in anything involving Mackenzie, could you do me a favor and call me right away? Anything that seems a bit off to you.” Grace pulled a business card out of her pocket and slid it across the table. “But, I just ask that you keep this between me and you—” Grace caught herself, “—and your brother, of course.” She looked over at Mark and caught his stare again; this time it was accompanied by a wink.

  “Sure thing.” Rain took the card and slid it into the front pocket of her backpack. “You people still use business cards? Sooo old school,” Rain joked as she uncrossed her legs and started to stand.

  “Shut it,” Mark teased. “Is she free to go now?” He turned toward Grace who was giggling at the interesting dynamic between the two of them.

  “Yes, you’re free. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  “Yeah, and get back to whatever sport or extracurricular activity that you have this afternoon, you overachiever,” Mark said as he stood and pulled the girl in for a hug, while looking over at Grace. “What kind of kid participates in school activities on break?”

  Grace started to stand and heft her bag on her shoulder as Mark watched Rain walk out the door of the café.

  “Hey do you mind sticking around for a little?” he asked.

  “Yeah, of course. What’s up?” Grace slipped back into the seat, touched by a tickle of butterflies in her stomach. It was one thing to be sitting at a table with Mark and his sister, it was another to be alone with him. Seeing the endearing relationship that Mark had with Rain had only escalated the adoration that she felt for the guy. Grace felt herself slowly falling into the depths of a crush, one that she was trying her hardest to swim away from.

  “My sister is cool, just so you know.” Mark took one last sip of his coffee before stuffing his napkin in the cup.

  “What do you mean?” The confusion on Grace’s face was enough to make Mark laugh a little.

  “I mean, she won’t tell anyone about the conversation that you two had today or any of the conversations you plan on having in the future. I’ve trained her right.” Mark threw another wink at her.

  “Oh, okay. Sorry . . . I wasn’t sure what you meant.” Grace felt a touch of embarrassment make its way to her skin; the heat was sure to leave a gentle burn resulting in splotches of red.

  “So, what’s this all about, anyways?” Mark asked directly.

  “It’s just . . . well . . .” Grace stumbled on her words, having not rehearsed how she would answer his inevitable questions.

  “Is it that gut feeling? You can tell me. Trust me, I have them all the time. Especially when it comes to cases,” he said, maintaining eye contact with her. “I know I’m not a fancy detective, but I’ve still gotten my ears wet on a few cases.”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s just intuition I guess. Something just doesn’t seem right.” The words started to relax her as they came out, and she became more comfortable in his presence. “I guess I just feel unsettled about this Mackenzie girl. There is something so off about her.” Grace tried her best to keep herself from describing the visions that tugged at her throughout the day, like a dull headache that wouldn’t go away.

  “I know how you feel. Sometimes when I release a criminal for something as simple as a speeding ticket, I’ll get this sick feeling that they’re some kind of crazed murderer and I’m just throwing them back in the world to do God knows what. I mean, imagine all the pedophiles out there. I’m sure we don’t know about half of them. It’s kept a secret for their lifetimes because the kids are too scared to say anything.” Mark paused, smoothing his hands on the surface of the table. Grace could see the line of veins protruding from his skin, evidence of his time at the gym. “Sorry, I get so worked up about this stuff. Now I’m babbling.”

  “No, no I totally get it. I mean, that’s why we’re in this field right?” Grace said, feeling a layer of the initial awkwardness removed from between them.

  “Yeah. Hey, do you want something to eat? They have amazing sandwiches here.”

  Grace realized for the first time that she hadn’t eaten anything since her romantic meal with Brody last night. She could feel an empty hole in her stomach, begging to be filled. “Um, sure.”

  “Let’s go check out the board. They usually have specials.” Mark stood and followed her lead to the counter. A massive chalkboard took up the entire back wall, filled with daily specials and favorites, written in artistic colorful chalk.

  “The usual, Mark?” The girl behind the counter looked up from wiping the surface with a rag.

  “Yes, please. Can you make sure there’s no bacon on it?”

  “As I always do,” the girl said as she went to work loading a wheat pocket with various vegetables.

  “Wait, you don’t like bacon?”

  “Vegetarian since 2007. You caught me.” Mark held up his hands before stuffing them deep into his pockets.

 

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